…; purchased from the dealer Hotei Japanese Prints, Leiden, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1992;
¹¹Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 27, cat. no. 44 by whom donated to the museum, 1995

Object number: RP-P-1995-280

Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse

The series-title indicates that this is one of a series of seven, but no other designs have been identified.

A man with a petulant expression, a towel around his head and holding an umbrella, stands by a large water barrel with a pile of smaller buckets on a triangular shelf next to it. Behind him a courtesan's apprentice, shinzo.

The man is the popular hero Sukeroku, a character in a kabuki play popularised by the Ichikawa family of actors, who pretends to be infatuated with the courtesan Agemaki while avenging the murder of his father. The text on one of the sides of the shelf reads 'Edo Street, First Block', Edocho it[chome], a street in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter.

The Popular Hero Sukeroku, Sukeroku, from A Series of Seven Prints, Shichiban no uchi.

One poem by Sansuisha Satochika.
The poem is not connected to the subject of the print, speaking of -

The peace and quiet of a trip in a covered boat with you, my flower, along the coast of Awa and Kazusa - Awa and Kazusa are the two provinces opposite Edo Bay.

Issued by an unidentified poetry club
Signature reading: Eisai Hokutai ga
Printer: Keiroku

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 133

M. Forrer, 2013, 'Katsushika Hokutai, Man with Umbrella by a Water Barrel, Japan, c. 1800 - c. 1805', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200382550